i29 Creates an Illusion of an Infinite Green Bathroom for House 06

The Dutch interior design group Amsterdam-i29 was nominated for the 2010 Bathroom Design Award awards for their House 06, which makes exquisite use of a skylit green wall outside the master bathroom/bedroom to create the illusion of infinite space.

The aesthetic brief is to mix nature in with a super-sleek and minimalist white environment.

The design is a renovation of an existing bedroom and bathroom with very little space. The Japanese client wanted to create more apparent space, and feature nature prominently.

To achieve the effect, the Dutch design group restricted itself to the simplest materials. Natural elemental materials, plus light. A skylight rakes light down a green wall, making it appear to be outside.

The design is infused with a typically Japanese sensibility of restraint and respect for natural world, at its most stark and elemental.

To create more space, the wall between bedroom and bathroom was eliminated and replaced with just a glass divider. (The photographer has manipulated this image to make the leaves appear white. This is actually the same natural green wall outside the bathroom, which can be seen here in the background).

But the real trick is the use of mirrors in the living green wall, only a few feet outside the space.

The green wall is seen from both the bathroom and the bedroom and it works to enlarge the apparent size of the master bedroom/master bathroom suite, with what appears to be a long green wall outdoors.

But, in the same way that the sky lighting from above creates the illusion of outdoor space, the apparent length is also an illusion.

Two narrow floor to ceiling mirrors, tucked right into the greenery, at the far end of both the bathroom and the bedroom, make the green wall appear to be infinite.